Tag Archives: woman

What is a Woman: Jeannine Vegh

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Wise Woman

Walks Alone.
Stands Tall.
Sees and observes; Questions and speaks.

She is not well loved or even understood – because she knows many things yet to unfold.

People fear her or scold her as she will not deny nor conform.
What they don’t know they will not allow anyone else to either.
Yet others see and acknowledge and accept what she has to offer.

And she would suffer
Humility, yet show a brave woman with stamina and courage.

She would commit herself to a challenge if she would learn.

She would love with her heart even though it might break.

While others are following one by one as the head of the line tells them what to do – she would stand by the side and consider the pros and cons.

If there is a job to do it will be done.

When you need a friend there will be one.

Wise but not perfect; learned and perhaps educated.

A nurturer who remains detached and conscious of her soul; the whole world as it affects one.

The wise woman is not necessarily the leader yet she would succeed in keeping her wits about her and always come out on top.

The wise woman is the person you ought to seek and know.

copyright 2005 Jeannine Vegh

What is a Woman: Helen Reddy

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Copy of the album when it came out in 1972 by EMI

I am Woman – Written by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend
‘Cause I’ve heard it all before
And I’ve been down there on the floor
No one’s ever going to keep me down again

Whoa, yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained

If I have to I can do anything
I am strong [(strong)]
I am invincible [(invincible)]
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
‘Cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I’ll come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
‘Cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul

Whoa, yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained

If I have to I can do anything
I am strong [(strong)]
I am invincible [(invincible)]
I am woman

I am woman, watch me grow
See me standing toe-to-toe
As I spread my loving arms across the land
But I’m still an embryo
With a long, long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Whoa, yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained

If I have to I can face anything
I am strong [(strong)]
I am invincible [(invincible)]
I am woman

Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

~~~~~~~~~

No one can understand what it is to be a woman unless you are born in our body. XX-XY

What is a Woman: Marge Piercy

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Group of diverse women in colorful clothing smiling and embracing on a rooftop
A group of diverse women sharing a joyful moment together on a rooftop with a cityscape background

For Strong Women by  Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.

A strong woman is a woman standing on tiptoe and lifting a barbell

while trying to sing Boris Godunov.

A strong woman is a woman at work

cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,

and while she shovels, she talks about

how she doesn’t mind crying, it opens

the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up

develops the stomach muscles, and

she goes on shoveling with tears

in her nose.

~

A strong woman is a woman in whose head

a voice is repeating, I told you so,

ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,

ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,

why aren’t you feminine, why aren’t

you soft, why aren’t you quiet, why

aren’t you dead?

~

A strong woman is a woman determined

to do something others are determined

not be done.  She is pushing up on the bottom

of a lead coffin lid.  She is trying to raise

a manhole cover with her head, she is trying

to butt her way through a steel wall.

Her head hurts.  People waiting for the hole

to be made say, hurry, you’re so strong.

~

A strong woman is a woman bleeding

inside.  A strong woman is a woman making

herself strong every morning while her teeth

loosen and her back throbs.  Every baby,

a tooth, midwives used to say, and now

every battle a scar.  A strong woman

is a mass of scar tissue that aches

when it rains and wounds that bleed

when you bump them and memories that get up

in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

~

A strong woman is a woman who craves love

like oxygen or she turns blue choking.

A strong woman is a woman who loves

strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly

terrified and has strong needs.  A strong woman is strong

in words, action, in connection, in feeling;

she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf

suckling her young.  Strength is not in her, but she

enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

~

What comforts her is others loving

her equally for the strength and for the weakness

from which it issues, lighting from a cloud.

lightning stuns.  In rain, the clouds disperse.

Only water of connection remains,

flowing through us.  Strong is what we make

each other. Until we are all strong together,

a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

~~~~~~~~~

Being born a woman is not something you can relate to unless you were. XX-XY

What is a Woman: Agnes Whistling Elk

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From the 2010 French documentary Babies, which is about the different ways children grow up around the world.

“It is law that all things must be born in woman, even things invented by men.” Agnes Whistling Elk (p.61 Medicine Woman by Lynn V. Andrews 1981).

“There are no medicine men without medicine women. A medicine man is given power by a woman, and it has always been that way. A medicine man stands in place of the dog. He is merely an instrument of woman. It doesn’t look that way any more but it is true.” Agnes Whistling Elk (p.1 Medicine Woman by Lynn V. Andrews 1981)

~~~~~~~~

You don’t become a woman, you are born a woman. You can’t understand this unless you were born this way. XX-XY

Being a Woman

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Sugar and spice and everything nice…

Mother Goose nursery Rhyme

Hardly! Though it is a beautiful thing, to hear nursery rhymes, and other fairy tales as a child. I remember how lovely these worlds seemed and how I wanted to be in them. It is up to the parent to help transition the child, into the realities of life once they hit puberty. Unfortunately, in a traumatic household, the child figures it out for themselves.

Recently, I turned 60 years old. I took a trip with a good friend of mine, another therapist, for four days. She is 73. Her job was to help me transition into my sixth decade. I perceived this birthday as one that would cause a lot of depression and anguish for me. It did not. The reason for this was that I was not alone. I had built up a strong female support system in the past year. They are all in my age group or older and they all resonated with what I felt like. On my big day, they sang songs, sent cards, they all made a point of congratulating me in their own special way. There is nothing like having strong, trustworthy, faithful female friends during a time of need. It is part of what being a woman is all about.

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